ICE 2007: L’Argentière la Bessée
10 / 01 / 07International Ice Climbing Festival in the French Ecrins
ICE is the annual meeting that attracts ice climbers from all over the world to explore the ice falls in the Fournel and Freissinières valleys around L’Argentière la Bessée in the French Ecrins. The area is recognised as one of the top spots in the world for offering some of the best ice climbing at every grade. As usual the organisers will be laying on free shuttle buses to drop you at the foot of the climbs, while in the evening you will have the opportunity to browse around the sponsors village and purchase or test gear from the likes of Petzl, Black Diamond, Millet and a little company called Alpkit. Evening entertainment also includes films from the Banff film festival and dry tooling. The usual Saturday night feast will this year be exchanged for a bivy out in the snow with a bonfire, films, cauldrons of soup and hot wine!
The festival runs from the 10th - 14th January and the full programme can be found on the IceFall website. As events unfold we will put some photos up in our scrapbook.